, image_skyline = Kulob 2700 th Anniversary monument - panoramio.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = The 2700th Anniversary monument, Kulob , image_flag = , image_seal = , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Tajikistan#West Asia , pushpin_relief = yes , pushpin_label_position = bottom , pushpin_mapsize = , pushpin_map_caption = Location in Tajikistan , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_type1 =

Region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

, subdivision_name = Tajikistan , subdivision_name1 =

Khatlon Region Khatlon Region ( tg, Вилояти Хатлон, ''Viloyati Xatlon''), one of the four provinces of Tajikistan ( tg, вилоят, ''Viloyat''), is the most populous of the four first level administrative regions. It is situated in the southwest ...

, subdivision_type2 = , subdivision_name2 = , established_title = , established_date = , government_type = , leader_title = , leader_name = , area_magnitude = , area_total_sq_mi = , area_total_km2 = , area_land_sq_mi = , area_land_km2 = , area_urban_sq_mi = , area_urban_km2 = , area_metro_km2 = , area_metro_sq_mi = , population_as_of = 2020 , population_footnotes = , population_total = 214700 , population_urban = 106300 , population_metro = , population_density_sq_mi = , population_density_km2 = , timezone = , utc_offset = , timezone_DST = , utc_offset_DST = , coordinates = , elevation_footnotes = , elevation_m = 580 , elevation_ft = , postal_code_type = , postal_code = 735360 , area_code = , blank1_name_sec2 = , blank1_info_sec2 = , website = , footnotes = Kulob ( tg, Кӯлоб, کولاﺏ, translit=Kûlob/Kūlob), formerly also Kulyab (russian: Куляб, translit=Kuljab), is a city in

, southern

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

. Located southeast of the capital

Dushanbe Dushanbe ( tg, Душанбе, ; ; russian: Душанбе) is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. , Dushanbe had a population of 863,400 and that population was largely Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe (r ...

on the river Yakhsu (a right tributary of

Panj Panj () is a city in southern Tajikistan which is situated on the Afghan border, some south of the capital Dushanbe. It is located along the north bank of the river Panj, from which it derives its name. The population of the town is 12,500 (Janu ...

), it is one of the largest cities in the country. Its population is estimated at 106,300 for the city proper and 214,700 for the city with the outlying communities (2020). The city is served by Kulob Airport.

History

Kulob inscription

In the

Hellenistic period In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...

, Kulob was part of the

Greco-Bactria The Bactrian Kingdom, known to historians as the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom or simply Greco-Bactria, was a Hellenistic-era Greek state, and along with the Indo-Greek Kingdom, the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world in Central Asia and the India ...

n kingdom. An inscription has been found in Kulob, dating to 200-195 BCE,Shane Wallac
Greek Culture in Afghanistan and India: Old Evidence and New Discoveries
p.206 in which a Greek by the name of Heliodotos, dedicates a fire altar to

Hestia In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hestia (; grc-gre, Ἑστία, meaning "hearth" or "fireside") is the virgin goddess of the hearth, the right ordering of domesticity, the family, the home, and the state. In myth, she is the firstborn ...

for the sake of the Greco-Bactrian king

Euthydemus I Euthydemus I (Greek: , ''Euthydemos'') c. 260 BC – 200/195 BC) was a Greco-Bactrian king and founder of the Euthydemid dynasty. He is thought to have originally been a governor (Satrap) of Sogdia, who seized the throne by force from Diodotus II ...

and his son Demetrius I. Heliodotos inscription, Kuliab

Later history

The historian

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari ( ar, أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطبري), more commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Muslim historian and scholar from Amol, Tabaristan. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari i ...

refers to the city as early as 737AD, although its founding is said to have been much earlier. Throughout its history, Kulob was known by the name ''Khatlān'' or ''Khatlon'' in modern Tajik, with its modern name only about 250 years old. The Sufi mystic

Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani ( fa, میر سید علی همدانی; CE) was a Persian scholar, poet and a Sufi Muslim saint of the Kubrawiya order. He was born in Hamadan, Iran and preached Islam in Central Asia and Kashmir as he travelled to pr ...

died while travelling through Central Asia in 1384 and was buried in Kulob in a tomb which still stands. Part of the

Khanate of Bukhara The Khanate of Bukhara (or Khanate of Bukhoro) ( fa, , Khānāt-e Bokhārā; ) was an Uzbek state in Central Asia from 1500 to 1785, founded by the Abu'l-Khayrid dynasty, a branch of the Shaybanids. From 1533 to 1540, Bukhara briefly became its ...

since the 16th century (the

Emirate of Bukhara The Emirate of Bukhara ( fa, , Amārat-e Bokhārā, chg, , Bukhārā Amirligi) was a Muslim polity in Central Asia that existed from 1785 to 1920 in what is modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It occupied the lan ...

since the 18th century), the city changed its name from Khatlon to Kulob in 1750. Following the Russian conquest of Central Asia and the creation of the

Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic,, ''Çumhuriji Şūraviji Sotsialistiji Toçikiston''; russian: Таджикская Советская Социалистическая Республика, ''Tadzhikskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Resp ...

within the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

in 1929, Kulob became one of the largest cities in the republic. Kulyab Museum, Kulyab, Tajikistan

During the

Tajikistani Civil War The Tajikistani Civil War ( tg, Ҷанги шаҳрвандии Тоҷикистон, translit=Jangi shahrvandiyi Tojikiston / Çangi shahrvandiji Toçikiston; russian: Гражданская война в Таджикистане), also known ...

in the early 1990s, the city served as the main base of the

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

militias.

Danghara tg, Данғара , image_skyline = , imagesize = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_seal = , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Tajikistan , pushpin_label_position =bottom , pushpin_mapsize = , pushpin_m ...

, a village in the Kulob area, is the birthplace of Tajikistan's president

Emomali Rahmon Emomali Rahmon (; born Emomali Sharipovich Rahmonov, tg, Эмомалӣ Шарӣпович Раҳмонов, script=Latn, italic=no, Emomalī Sharīpovich Rahmonov; ; born 5 October 1952) has been the 3rd President of Tajikistan since 16 Novem ...

In September 2006, Kulob celebrated its 2700th anniversary. After Tajikistan's independence in 1991, Kulob was one of the three cities in the country where the Russian

201st Motor Rifle Division The Russian 201st Military Base ( tg, Пойгоҳи низомии 201-и Русия; russian: 201-я российская военная база) is a Russian military base based in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, part of the Central Military Distric ...

was deployed (the others are

and

Qurghonteppa , native_name_lang=tg , image_skyline = Бохтар 2018.jpg , imagesize = 300px , image_caption = Bokhtar in 2018 , image_flag = , image_seal = , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Tajikistan , pushpin_label_position =bott ...

). Following a number of scandals with local residents, Russia unexpectedly pulled its troops from Kulob in November 2015, effectively abandoning the base there.

Geography

Climate

Kulob has a

hot-summer Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

: ''Csa''). The average annual temperature is . The warmest month is July with an average temperature of and the coolest month is January with an average temperature of . The average annual precipitation is and has an average of 72.8 days with precipitation. The wettest month is March with an average of of precipitation and the driest month is August with an average of 0 mm of precipitation.

Subdivisions

Before ca. 2018, Kulob was the seat of Kulab District, which covered the rural part of the present city of Kulob. The city of Kulob covers Kulob proper and four jamoats. These are as follows:Jamoat-level basic indicators
, United Nations Development Programme in Tajikistan, accessed 8 October 2020

Notable people

Orzu Iso Orzu Iso ( tg, Орзу Исо, fa, آرزو عیسی, or Orzu Isoev; born October 14, 1976, Kulab, Kulab region) is a Tajik presenter, TV and radio journalist, songwriter and blogger. Biography Isoev was born on October 14, 1976 in the city ...

(born 1976), presenter, TV and radio journalist, songwriter and blogger *

Mavzuna Chorieva Mavzuna Chorieva (born 1 October 1992 in Kulob, Tajikistan) is a Tajikistani boxer. She won bronze at the 2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an inte ...

(born 1992), boxer *

Moses Znaimer Moses Znaimer (; born 1942) is a Tajik-born Canadian media executive of jewish descent. He is the co-founder and former head of Citytv, the first independent television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the current head of ZoomerMedia. ...

(born 1942), co-founder of

Citytv Citytv is a Canadian television network owned by the Rogers Sports & Media subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The licence of the original Citytv station, granted the callsign of CITY-TV by the CRTC on November 25, 1971 to Cable Television Ass ...

Shabnam Surayyo Shabnam Surayyo (also spelled as Surayo, Suraya, or Soraya) ( tg, Шабнами Сурайё) is a Tajik singer. Life Surayyo was born into a musical family, with both her mother Surayyo Qosimova and sister Farzonai Khurshed also singers in her ...

(born 1981), Folk Pop singer *

Manija Dawlat Manizha Davlat ( tg, Манижа Давлат; born on December 31, 1982) (also spelled as Manizha Davlatova, Manija Davlat, Manizha Dawlat and Manija Dawlat) is a Tajik people, Tajikistani pop singer. She is associated with Persian pop music. M ...

(born 1982), Pop singer *

, (born 1952), politician

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Khatlon Region